This invention relates in general to the construction of automatic devices and in particular to a new and useful industrial robot having a gripping mechanism for gripping workpieces of diverse configurations.
The invention concerns a gripping mechanism on an industrial robot for individual workpieces of different type and small series of identical workpieces of any shape. The gripping mechanism comprises at least two pivotally mounted fingers which have several gripping elements moving relative to each other. In a first workpiece of a series, the gripping elements are pressed on the surface of the workpiece and locked in a gripping position for the entire handling period of all workpieces of this series, so that the fingers from rigid gripping surfaces adapted form-locking to the workpieces for the following gripping operations. The opening and closing of the gripping mechanism, with the gripping elements locked, is effected by turning the levers in opposite direction by means of a lever mechanism.